Officials to Offer Update on Voting Rights Battle

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chairman Vincent C. Gray, the D.C. City Council and DC Vote are holding a news conference this morning to offer an update on the voting rights fight.

The news conference is set to start at the John A. Wilson Building at 9 a.m. DC Vote says it will unveil a national ad that focuses on the District's fallen soldiers and veterans.

The council will report on its recent vote for an electronic message board for the Wilson building that would calculate the federal tax dollars residents pay while being denied voting rights. (The council wants to put a board at the new baseball stadium, but the Nationals don't seem too interested in hosting such a "political" sign.)

Holmes will discuss the status of the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Not clear if Mayor Adrian M. Fenty will be joining the news conference. But he's made no secret that one of the reasons he's thrown his support behind Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, is that he's hoping Obama will be a big advocate for voting rights.